Chronicle Editor
Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
PREMIER African Minerals has completed the drilling of 1 000 metres at its Zulu lithium and tantalum project in Insiza District, Matabeleland South province.
In July, the multi-commodity mining and resource group announced the commencement of drilling at Zulu. To date, two rigs drilling have been focused on step out zones intended to increase the mineral resource estimate.
“The company is pleased to provide this update on progress at Premier’s Zulu Lithium and Tantalum project in Zimbabwe where drilling has commenced with 1 000 metres completed,” said Premier.
A total of six diamond holes have been completed with planned 20 000 metres of diamond core drilling including sample collection for test work with good intersections of visible spodumene mineralisation encountered.
According to the company, location of mineralised intersections in completed boreholes indicate continuity within the step out zone and subject to assay results may increase the overall resource estimate at Zulu lithium.
“One rig will be dedicated from September to larger diameter core recovery for metallurgical, mineralogical, and geotechnical test work,” it said.
A third rig is expected on site next month. Premier chief executive officer Mr George Roach said they were excited with the progress so far achieved at Zulu and in the Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO) extended area of over 200 square kilometres.
“As much as I have expectations for this EPO and results from resource drilling, our focus must be fixed on the Definitive Feasibility Study requirements,” he said.
“Our priority at this time is metallurgical test work to guide the design of the plant that will have to be built to produce the concentrates we plan to sell.
“Quite large samples are required and these need to be recovered from within the known resource.
“It is envisaged that the test work would in all likelihood be undertaken in Europe and the quicker sample material are collated and get it shipped, the more likely we are to maintain our timelines to the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS).”
On the EPO, work to date has included collation of historic data, initial surface mapping and inspection, and is progressing with ground based geophysical data gathering and compilation of a detailed remote sensing study, including hyper-spectral imaging to identify possible spectral features of pegmatite intrusions and to discriminate the Li-bearing pegmatites from the host rocks.
“This approach has the potential to generate additional exploration targets over the almost 200 square kilometre EPO,” said Premier.
The company believes that the deep purple pegmatite in the overview of the EPO should be of particular interest due to its relationship to the main Zulu ore bodies, which are only eight kilometres away.
Historically, this has been associated with abundantly occurring deeply purple coloured lepidolite but has also been worked for spodumene and is reportedly a source for pollucite.
Premier African Minerals Limited is a multi-commodity mining and natural resource development company focused on Southern Africa with its RHA Tungsten and Zulu Lithium projects in Zimbabwe.
The company has a diverse portfolio of projects, which include tungsten, rare earth elements, lithium and tantalum in Zimbabwe and lithium and gold in Mozambique, encompassing brownfield projects with near-term production potential to grass-roots exploration. — @okazunga.
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